Mother Jones
On Friday evening, just as reporters were logging off, the Supreme Court let slip a clue about whether it would take up cases that could determine the outcome of a close election in the coming weeks. Specifically, the hint came in a statement from Justice Samuel Alito. Spoiler: He’s open to it. Alito’s missive came […]
Mother JonesCliff Maloney is the founder of Pennsylvania Chase, a door-knocking, “ballot chasing” operation meant to encourage conservative voters in that crucial swing state to return mail-in ballots. The 32-year-old is also, of late, the face of a particularly bumbling public attempt to root out supposed illegal voting—one that, despite him having already been heartily scolded […]
Mother JonesJ. Ann Selzer has earned several nicknames throughout her 37-year-long stint leading the Des Moines Register’s Iowa Poll. She’s called the “Outlier Queen” when she breaks from what appears to be the consensus of political polls. And when her final pre-election polls paint a complicated picture for otherwise favored candidates, political insiders refer to her […]
Mother JonesVoters in swing states who received notice of a $1 million check from Elon Musk should know two things: Simple luck is not how this happened—and you are now on the hook to be an official spokesperson for Musk’s America super PAC. That’s according to a lawyer for the tech billionaire, who acknowledged in court […]
Mother JonesKeyes, California, is not the typical town in which a Republican spends the precious final days of a close campaign. It is a working-class community of less than 6,000 between Merced and Modesto where about two-thirds of people are Latino and six percent of residents have a bachelor’s degree. Yet six days before the election, […]
Mother JonesFight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters. This story was published first by ProPublica, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up for ProPublica’s Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox as soon as they are published. In public remarks, former President Donald Trump has repeatedly […]
Mother JonesTwo weeks after the Norfolk Southern train derailment upended East Palestine, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) filmed a dispatch to the American public from the edge of a creek. Against a backdrop of brown winter forest and gray limestone, Vance used a stick to stir up a plume of oily contamination. “Do not forget these people,” […]
Mother JonesAcross the country, you can find small town diners and watering holes proudly displaying photos of a president stopping by on the campaign trail. It’s not only a memento of how the person who got the nuclear codes may have ordered a burger or a slice of rhubarb pie—it’s a reminder of how voters have […]
Mother JonesAcross the country, you can find small town diners and watering holes proudly displaying photos of a president stopping by on the campaign trail. It’s not only a memento of how the person who got the nuclear codes may have ordered a burger or a slice of rhubarb pie—it’s a reminder of how voters have […]
Mother JonesWhen Tim Stringham arrived at a “Veterans for Harris” canvassing launch on Sunday in a Phoenix shopping center alongside Sen. Mark Kelly and Rep. Ted Lieu of California, the 35-year-old first-time candidate took a moment to acknowledge the obvious. “You know that times are strange when the candidate for recorder gets to come up here […]
Mother JonesRebecca Cooke has spent many nights this year waiting tables during her race for Congress in a Wisconsin swing district. She is a 36-year-old service industry worker and nonprofit leader with a chance to secure an upset in a tight House race. It’s not the typical profile for a future member of Congress. She has […]
Mother JonesThe below article first appeared in David Corn’s newsletter, Our Land. The newsletter comes out twice a week (most of the time) and provides behind-the-scenes stories and articles about politics, media, and culture. Subscribing costs just $5 a month—but you can sign up for a free 30-day trial. For almost a decade, our world has been shaped and distorted by the […]
Mother JonesDemocracy is at once everywhere and nowhere—on the lips of the masses calling for freedom and fearing for its safeguarding, while every day asking the question: What even is democracy? Starting in 2018, that is the question the Our Democracy team—me along with photographer Andrea Bruce and educator and videographer Lorraine Ustaris—set out to answer. […]
Mother JonesElon Musk’s $150 million pro-Trump super-PAC is one of the biggest campaign-finance stories in years—maybe ever. It’s the first time a presidential campaign has completely outsourced much of its get-out-the-vote operation to an outside group. And so far, it has been more X than SpaceX. Musk has overhauled his staff at least once, been sued […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. The final days of this election season are wearying for the people who do research and advocacy on the transition away from fossil fuels. For this group, the Biden administration has been a champion, developing landmark legislation and building a […]
Mother JonesYes, you read that headline right. At a rally in Pennsylvania on Sunday, Donald Trump said he would be OK with someone trying to assassinate him by firing through a group of journalists. “To get me, somebody would have to shoot through the fake news. And I don’t mind that so much,” Trump said, when […]
Mother JonesOn Sunday morning, Donald Trump made something crystal clear: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is “going to have a big role in the administration” if he wins. And some of RFK Jr.’s wildest ideas—including banning certain vaccines and removing fluoride from drinking water—could be on the table. Trump made the comments to NBC News reporter Dasha […]
Mother JonesWith two days until Election Day, the New York Times is confronting a potential crisis: The army of tech workers who keep its digital platforms running is threatening to go on strike. Nearly 700 members of the newspaper’s Tech Guild—which represents the workers who power the famous election needle, mobile push alerts, Wordle, the audio […]
Mother JonesWhat changes if more people showed up to vote? One answer emerges by comparing Minnesota and Tennessee—two states with vastly different voter turnout rates. Minnesota leads the nation, with nearly 80 percent of eligible voters participating in the 2020 election. With that, Minnesotans have elected leaders who have advanced a popular agenda: universal school meals, […]
Mother JonesIn overturning Roe v. Wade, the US Supreme Court gave state-level judges enormous new power to decide the reproductive fates of tens of millions of people of childbearing age. With the national right to abortion wiped out, states were forced to decide if abortions were legal for their residents as pre-Roe “zombie” laws, trigger bans, […]
Mother JonesIt started, according to court filings, with a tweet. On August 18, Maria Bartiromo, the Fox News Host, alerted her 1.4 million followers on X to a development that might not, at first glance, seem like news: She was hearing troubling reports of lines at the DMV. The information had come to Bartiromo fourth-hand. The […]
Mother JonesAs Donald Trump campaigns to be a dictator for one day, he’s asking: “Are you better off now than you were when I was president?” Great question! To help answer it, our Trump Files series is delving into consequential events from the 45th president’s time in office that Americans might have forgotten—or wish they had. It was no surprise. Instead, call […]
Mother JonesIt was no surprise. Instead, call it the October reveal. In the final days of the 2024 election, ugly rhetoric from Donald Trump’s campaign drew major national attention when a speaker made a racist joke about Puerto Rico as part of the ex-president’s Oct. 27 rally at Madison Square Garden. The event was an inevitable […]
Mother JonesThis story was reported by Floodlight, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates the powerful interests stalling climate action. This past April, days before a Louisiana Public Service Commission (PSC) meeting at a remote lakefront resort, the state’s largest power company dropped a bombshell. Entergy asked the five commissioners to vote—four months ahead of a schedule—on an […]
Mother JonesAt a rally Saturday in Gastonia, North Carolina, Donald Trump thanked God for an October jobs report that showed a slow-down in job growth due in part to the recent hurricane that decimated the western part of the state. “How good was that?” Trump asked the crowd. “To get those numbers four days before the […]
Mother JonesDonald Trump is amplifying attacks on the media in the final days of the campaign, broadly threatening retaliation against the industry for coverage critical of him. “To make America great you really have to get the news shaped up,” Trump told Fox News Saturday morning. During a rally in North Carolina later that day, Trump […]
Mother JonesDonald Trump has an enemies list. The Sierra Club has an allies list—some 259,000 Pennsylvanians who could decide the election. They have demonstrated concern for the climate crisis, the clean energy transition, and the environment—but they are young, or newly registered, or do not regularly vote. “These voters can be critical,” says Sarah Burton, the […]
Mother JonesWith the election on everyone’s mind, it’s a good moment to revisit a consequential election from the past. No, we’re not talking about 2016. Let’s go way further back—to what’s considered the only successful coup d’etat in US history. In the late 1800s, Wilmington, North Carolina, was a city where African Americans thrived economically and […]
Mother JonesThe idea that women might vote differently from their husbands made Fox News star Jesse Watters’ brain melt live on air this week. Referring to his current wife, Watters, with his trademark smirk, told his colleagues on The Five, “If I found out Emma was going into the voting booth and pulling the lever for […]
Mother JonesAfter all shouting and debating, all the billions in ads, and all the fury, the 2024 election will determine whether this nation remains committed to its imperfect democracy or slides toward fascism, whether the politics of hate, grievance, paranoia, fear, and racism triumphs or those of community and inclusion, whether women’s freedoms are curtailed or […]